A useful outing

Today’s guest picture comes from a visit my Somerset correspondent, Venetia, made to Benter Village. She met with some fowl play while she was there.

In the way that these things often happen, we got a day of pretty good weather just when I couldn’t make good use of it. My toothache was still bad when I woke up, but I found that if I did nothing active, it stayed tolerable so I had a very quiet morning.

We had a sunny coffee meeting with Margaret and while Mrs Tootlepedal and Margaret chatted, I kept an eye out for passing butterflies. Although a few fluttered by, only one stayed long enough for a photograph.

Our friendly blackbird dropped in to listen to the conversation as it often does.

In the absence of butterflies, I took pictures of flowers. Zinnias don’t like rain and although some of Mrs Tootlepedal’s zinnias have given up, this one is doing its best to come out.

And new dahlias are adding to the garden colour every day.

Old friends are thriving.

My appointment with the dentist was at 1.20 in Annan, which is a 20 mile drive from Langholm, so we had a light lunch and set off, hoping that the repaired tyre on the Zoe would stay repaired. It did and we arrived safely in Annan in plenty of time. I had been instructed to knock on the window when I arrived as the door would be locked. I duly knocked, the door was unlocked and I entered in, sanitising my hands as I went. It felt well organised and safe.

Technology is so smart these days that the dentist was able to x-ray my troublesome teeth and show me the results on a screen only moments later. Dentists are not allowed to do any treatment that involves spray but they can do extractions, and it wasn’t long after seeing the x-ray pictures that I found myself two teeth lighter. The process was remarkably painless.

We drove home by quiet back roads at a modest speed.

Naturally, I was a bit down in the mouth when we got home, but I cheered myself up with a couple more emerging dahlia shots…

I like the variety of dahlias that Mrs Tootlepedal has sown.

Then, although I had been given a post extraction instruction sheet that told me to avoid strenuous exercise, I did go so far as to the mow the middle lawn, but I mowed it very gently and took no hurt.

I checked on the vegetables garden and found large peas…

…and very small but potential runner beans.

I picked some more beetroot and put them on to cook, and then noticed the first crocosmia in the garden…

…and a large number of bees visiting the ligularia.

While I sat inside for a rest, Mrs Tootlepedal sat on the new bench under the privet. If the ligularia was busy with bees, the privet was super busy and Mrs Tootlepedal could hardly hear herself think for the sound of the buzzing. The privet ‘snow’ can be seen in today’s header picture.

After a cup of tea, we went back out into the garden to pick peas and beans for our evening meal and I ended my floral photography with a picture of a very late flower on the rosa complicata.

I had a moment to watch the birds for a while and found the feeder very busy.

One bird was bemused by the sight of another eating seed on the feeder without using one of the handy perches.

And smaller birds had several unsuccessful goes at kicking greenfinches off the feeder.

After a sibling Zoom (with interesting pictures again), my mouth was recovered enough for me to enjoy the peas and beans from the garden with an excellent steak pie from our local butcher for our evening meal.

What makes the loss of a good cycling day to dentistry all the more annoying is the forecast of rain and wind returning for the next two days. Still, at least I haven’t got toothache which is a blessing.

The flying bird of the day is a siskin.